The MVP Machine: How Baseball's New Nonconformists Are Using Data to Build Better Players

The accumulation of deliberate practice—focused work with intent—is the key to quicker achievement of expertise.

player

In 2015, Bill James said, “My view on the world is we have an ocean of ignorance and a small island of knowledge.” He wasn’t speaking specifically about baseball, but the observation applies, even to one of the most obsessively chronicled and comprehensively quantified human hobbies.

“The man with the information wins,” he says. “The information is king.”

MANIAC,

BOTTOM-UP

I know how hard it is to know something. —AMERICAN THEORETICAL PHYSICIST RICHARD FEYNMAN

PRINCIPLES

When an organization embraces modern development, the internal appetite for information tends to snowball as players pass it along.